Mixing consoles provide an operator with the ability to access and adjust many groups of controls for each of multiple audio channels. In the case of live mixing consoles, the operator needs fast access to the controls for each channel. On traditional analog mixing consoles, individual controls are grouped into functional areas, such as input, equalizer, dynamics, and auxiliary send. These controls are repeated for each channel strip, which result in a large work surface as well as a complex and potentially confusing user interface.
Digital mixing consoles attempt to mitigate the problem of large and complex work surfaces by using a single channel strip approach, in which an operator selects a channel and then accesses and controls the parameters of the selected channel using a single set of dynamically updated functional controls for each of the functional areas corresponding to the currently selected channel. This avoids the need to have a dedicated set of controls for each channel.